1. Technical Field
This invention relates to improvements in scheduling tasks to be performed by a plurality of resources, for example tasks carried out by field engineers on a telecommunications system that extends over a wide area such as a country or state.
2. Description of Related Art
In our PCT/WO98/22897, a scheduling system is described which may be used for a telecommunications system in order to schedule repair tasks to be performed on the system by field engineers. Telecommunications systems conventionally are provided with automatic fault monitoring systems that report repair tasks to be carried out by field engineers and scheduling systems may be provided to communicate schedules of tasks to the field engineers. The engineers then travel from location to location carrying out the tasks, reporting when tasks are completed to the scheduler through a portable computer. The scheduler described in our aforesaid PCT application dynamically updates the schedules for the individual engineers depending on workload and engineer availability, which vary dynamically.
The present invention seeks to improve upon this prior system.